Campaigns Seek Positives in Negative Tone

Race's Tough Talk Could Help Parties Fire Up Their Bases While Souring Voters on the Other Guy, but There Are Risks

By

Carol E. Lee

Updated Aug. 17, 2012 1:25 p.m. ET

The presidential race's unusually early negative character has shaped the course of the campaign, raising significant risks but also opportunities for both sides.

Wall Street Journal reporters and editors on attack politics reaching a fever pitch in the presidential race. Carol Lee shares exclusive insights from being on the campaign trail with President Obama. Photo: Getty Images.

The sharp attacks traded between the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney escalated this week, particularly on the subject of which party might undermine Medicare. Atypically for this stage of the campaign, the barbs began involving the two candidates rather than just their campaign surrogates.

Mr. Romney declared that the president should "take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago," while the president said Mr. Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, are "just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks."

For both sides, the harsh rhetoric may actually serve a useful purpose this year. The 2012 vote figures to be a close one in which energizing the base of each party is the top priority, because there are so few undecided voters up for grabs this year. Tough campaign talk tends to fire up a party's core.

But for Mr. Obama, the tone could damage his political brand of optimism that had appeal across the political spectrum in 2008. For Mr. Romney, the negativity distracts from his message on the economy, which polls show as Mr. Obama's biggest vulnerability.

Neither side shows any signs of curtailing the negativity. The Obama campaign is planning an onslaught of attacks based on the budget crafted by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice-presidential candidate. The Romney campaign is running tough ads that accuse Mr. Obama of letting welfare recipients off the hook on requirements that they seek work. Each side is bitterly protesting the other's ads.

ENLARGE

The campaigns of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have traded tough talk.
Quad-City Times/Zuma Press

The increase in ads financed by outside groups, which can be even harsher than the ones put out by the campaigns, has fed perceptions of an increasingly negative tone.

One effect of such early negativity is that both candidates figure to be battered by November, and voters could become fatigued earlier. And that could reduce even further the number of swing voters participating on election day—and increase even further the importance of turning out each party's base.

Trey Grayson, the director of Harvard University's Institute of Politics, said part of the strategy for both candidates is to convince some voters to stay home by making the alternative look so unappealing.

"Sometimes that's an easier argument to make than to try to get the person to come back to you," said Mr. Grayson, a Republican. The negative strategy, he said, ultimately could benefit Mr. Obama because "If you're mad at Washington and you don't vote for the challenger, that's a win for the incumbent," but it "also appeals to your base because they really hate the other guy and so they get fired up to go vote."

Both sides are encouraged down this path by the fact that, while voters say they don't like negative campaigning, polls show it often works, said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

"In the end, people who are…having trouble making a choice are often swayed by these negative assertions," Mr. Kohut said. "On the Democratic side, there is probably a greater need to get some of the groups that supported Obama in '08 really into this campaign psychologically because they are not as predisposed to vote as they were four years ago. So it could be effective in that regard."

The negative strategy for each campaign has become clearer in recent days.

The Obama campaign decided more than a year ago to define Mr. Romney early, on its terms, in an attempt to make the election at least in part a referendum on him and his business record rather than what most re-election campaigns tend to be, which is a referendum on the incumbent. The result has been a negative message designed to raise doubts about whether Mr. Romney is trustworthy and stump speeches where the president takes on his opponent by name.

Mr. Romney's campaign is seeking to drive up negative views of Mr. Obama, who remains personally fairly popular even as ratings of his job performance have stagnated. The campaign, seeing a potential vulnerability for Mr. Obama on the issue, has recently launched ads criticizing Mr. Obama for not fulfilling his promise in 2008 to bring a more civil tone to politics. Mr. Romney repeatedly said Mr. Obama doesn't understand America.

"President Obama is using the same disgusting political tactics that candidate Obama denounced in 2008," said Ryan Williams, a Romney campaign spokesman.

The Obama campaign sees Mr. Romney's new focus on the tone of the race as an attempt to distract from questions about his taxes and his record as a businessman. "Before he nominated Congressman Ryan to the ticket, [Mr. Romney] had spent the previous year running what was almost an entirely negative campaign," Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

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